So true. I always have dealt that way particularly with cars. I would much rather buy a 10 year old very well taken care of quality car than a brand new inexpensive car.

I really admire billionaire owner of IKEA:

He could easily afford a private jet but would rather fly economy class and preferably on a budget airline. Arriving at a gala to receive a Businessman Of The Year Award he was at first refused entry because he had come on the bus. At home he drove an ancient Volvo for years until he was persuaded that it was too dangerous.

Rather than dining in Michelin starred restaurants he likes to drop in to one of his stores for a cheap meal of his favourite Swedish meatballs. In cafeterias he swipes the little packets of salt and pepper to take home.

Admittedly he has lived in Switzerland as a tax exile since 1976. But his home is a modest bungalow and he assembled every stick of Ikea flatpack furniture in it himself.

He regards luxury not merely as an indulgence but almost as a sin. In his memoir Testament Of A Furniture Dealer he wrote: “We don’t need flashy cars, impressive titles, uniforms or other status symbols. We rely on our strength and our will!”

Employees – although he prefers to call them “co-workers” – at Ikea HQ are told to use both sides of a sheet of paper and get a telling-off if they leave the lights on when leaving a room. Certainly anyone encountering him doing his shopping in the local market (always near closing time when vendors are more likely to drop their prices) dressed in his scruffy coat would assume he was just another elderly gent living on a tight budget rather than the fifth wealthiest entrepreneur in the world.